Would you be willing to trade 10 minutes at the start of practice in order to shorten training by an hour and increase your team’s learning and development? Many coaches struggle to keep practices short and on task and fear giving up any time to activities like mindfulness training. What Dr. Lynch has discovered, the

Ryan Holiday is a strategist, speaker and best-selling author. He dropped out of college at nineteen to apprentice under Robert Greene, author of The 48 Laws of Power, and later served as the director of marketing for American Apparel. His company, Brass Check, has advised clients like Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as many

It’s not often you get to speak with the greatest athlete in the world, and pick his brain about coaching, practice habits, multi-sport participation, parental and coaching influences, staying on top of your game, and so much more. This week John sits down with world record holder and 2x Olympic Gold Medalist Ashton Eaton for

Dear Mom and Dad I wanted to start this letter by saying I love you, and I know you mean well. I appreciate all the time and energy you put into taking me to my games and practices, and I know you sacrifice a lot to do it. I also appreciate when you try to

(Article written by James Leath (@jamesleath)) “I am sick and tired of coaches playing favorites” a parent once told me at a speaking event. “A coach should be completely impartial. It teaches the wrong message when he or she only plays favorites. Am I right?” I smiled, took a breath and responded, “I actually think

Contributed by James Leath (@jamesleath) “He is going to be shocked we no longer want him.” “Come again?” I asked the college assistant coach seated across from me at lunch. “You flew across the country to meet him, and now you won’t recruit him anymore?” The coach had recently stopped for a day in another

“Do you want to win every game you play for the rest of your life?” That was a question that Olympic gold medalist and current USA Women’s Volleyball team head coach Karch Kiraly asked his team as they prepared for the 2014 World Championships. “Because we can,” he told them. They could schedule easy opponents,

A few nights ago I went to a graduation. Not a high school or a college graduation, but one far smaller, and far more personal. In fact, there were only seven kids, one of which was my 9-year-old son TJ. He and six others were being recognized by their amazing teacher for their dedication, hard

“How many of you want to be a college athlete?” I asked this question to 3,000 middle school students in Southern California recently. In all, about 1,000 kids raised their hands. “What about an artist? A singer? What about a musician?” Maybe 500 students raised their hands. “What about running a business? Raise your hand

By James Leath (this first appeared on his blog at www.JamesLeath.com) A former student athlete of mine was awarded a full ride to play NCAA D1 football and he called me recently, just to talk. Calls from former athletes are a huge highlight in any coach’s day. “Coach, what is the difference between winning and

Back in the summer of 2000, I was just completing my first year as an assistant men’s soccer coach at the University of Vermont. Between sessions of summer camp, I often ducked out of the heat by having lunch in the cool confines of UVM’s famed Gutterson Field House, watching some of the planet’s best

“Here is my question,” a mother concerned with her 10 year-old son’s sports experience recently wrote me. “I am not afraid that my son will quit sports by the time he is 13. I am afraid that he will be denied the opportunity to play. My son is coordinated and coachable. He LOVES sports; we

“I just can’t take it anymore coach,” a talented but underperforming player named Kate told me a few years back. “I think I am done playing.” My mind went through all the reasons this might be happening: burnout, other interests, team dynamics, I was too hard on her, the gamut. What could it be? “It’s

“Coach, I don’t want to take a penalty shot,” said a very nervous 13 year-old player of mine a few years back. We were in the Oregon Soccer State Cup semifinals, and this talented but not quite confident young girl looked in no mood to take a shot in the penalty shootout to determine whether

If you put a bunch of top coaches, sport scientists and psychologists in a room together, they may not agree on much. They would agree on one thing though: an overemphasis on winning and competition, instead of practice and development, is detrimental to the long term performance of young athletes. Unfortunately, today in youth sports

When I was a kid, my parents taught me to avoid those bad four letter words we all have heard. You know the ones I mean, the ones that you would first hear in school and then think it was OK to use them at home, until you saw that look on dad’s face! My

On April 26, 2014 I had the honor of presenting a talk at TEDx Bend Oregon entitled “Changing the Game in Youth Sports.” The power of the TED platform, and its international recognition as a brand that brings “ideas worth sharing” to the forefront of conversation, was such an incredible platform to be able to

“I lost my starting spot on the soccer team. I’m just not good at soccer.” “I failed my math test. I’m just not good at math.” Ever heard such a statement form one of your kids? From one of your players? If so, it is very likely that the single greatest factor limiting their performance

(A child’s first contact and first impression of a sport goes a long way to determining whether or not he will fall in love with the game. As basketball great Steve Nash says, upon receiving his first ball and playing in his first organized league at age 13, “I felt like I had a new

Spring and early summer usually bring about an annual rite of passage in youth sports: TRYOUTS! They can be a time of great joy, or tremendous disappointment. Tryouts can be a time filled with pressure, stress, politics and many of the other unsavory aspects of youth sports. They can also be a time where a

Let me be blunt and scream this from the rooftop: the best athletes PLAY sports. They don’t work them, they play them. When sport becomes more work than play, athletes struggle, they grind, and if they cannot get back to playing instead of working, they eventually drop out. From youth to pros, when the fun

Elite performance is determined by a number of factors, amongst them innate talent and genetics, hours of deliberate training, coaching, and luck. But performance is also great affected by what is between an athlete’s ears: mindset. An athlete’s state of mind is perhaps the single greatest factor that affects performance. In his great book The

The recent news out of Texas, where a 16 year old driver was only given probation for driving drunk and killing four innocent bystanders, popularized a new psychological term in the process. Apparently, parents raising children in wealthy suburbs with little oversight, few rules, and utter indifference to their behavior are causing “affluenza,” a supposed

If you have coached long enough, you have probably said this about a player: “He’s got a lot of talent, but he is just missing something.” I have written on similar subjects in the past, and there has been academic research in this area. In all likelihood, that missing ingredient was often the inner drive

Parents ask me all the time if I think their child has what it takes to play at the college or professional level. They are asking if I think their kid has enough talent. My reply: “How much are your kids willing to suffer?” The answer to that simple question will go a long way

As a young coach, I was convinced that there were only two possible outcomes to a game, winning or losing. Of course, losing was to be avoided at all costs, even if that meant not playing weaker players, benching underperformers, criticizing referees, you name it. Then I started to study people whom I would call

Are your kids mentally tough? Can they be pushed to achieve great things, or do they need to be coddled? Do they deal well with disappointment and failure, or do they fear it, and thus avoid challenging situations? Do they fear strict, demanding coaches, or do they thrive on them? As parents we know our

Why are we so afraid to challenge kids these days, or to let our kids be challenged? We all know that our greatest accomplishments, the things we are most proud of in our lives, be they building a business, or our family, or athletic achievements, all came with struggle! Nothing great comes easy. This week

Have you ever noticed when you go to your child’s soccer game that you react one way to bad calls, aggressive fouls, or intense situations in your game, but have little or no reaction to similar situations in the game prior to yours, where you have no emotional stake? Do you can sit there with

One of the great divides in youth sports is the divide between why kids say they play, and why parents and coaches think they play! Lucky for us this issue has been studied numerous times, all over the world, by institutions of higher learning. The results are quite profound. Check out my latest video to